Make an eternal impact with the master’s resources

Sermon Transcript

“I’ll be back.” “I’ll be back.” What does that one iconic line remind you of? That’s right, Arnold Schwartzenegar and the original Terminator. It’s amazing that you got that because Terminator was made before I was born, which means it was made before the majority of you were born. I’ll be back. Our passage this morning is the Lord Jesus’ I’ll be back moment. Matthew 24-25 records a private conversation between the Lord Jesus and his disciples in which he tells them that he’s going away – think cross and resurrection – but he’ll be back. He’ll be back. And throughout Matthew 24-25, the Lord Jesus teaches his disciples, and by extension all of us, how to live in his Kingdom now while we wait for his return, when he’ll be back. How should we live, knowing that our Lord Jesus will be back? Matthew 25:14, 19-21 – “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property…Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ The Lord Jesus will be back and the big idea he leaves with us so that we know how to be ready for him is this: make an eternal impact with the master’s resources. Guys – Jesus will be back and the joy of it will be unspeakable. In the meantime, the promise that he’ll be back can fill us with such hope that in the midst of a world mad about money, we can make an eternal impact with the master’s resources. How wonderful is that? You and I have the sacred privilege of being free from storing up what Jesus calls “treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.” Instead, our hearts and hopes are so set on the day when he’ll be back that we can spend our days until that Day, making an eternal impact with the master’s resources. In our passage this morning, Jesus will pour on three glorious reasons why we can, why we should, why we must make an eternal impact with the master’s resources: 1. It’s all his. 2. We are his stewards. 3. The stakes are high.

IT’S ALL HIS

The very first thing that the Lord Jesus tells us about why we can make an eternal impact with His resources is so freeing. Matthew 25:14 – “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.” That is so freeing and revolutionary. We are free to make an eternal impact with all the resources that we have – our time, treasure, and talent – because none of it is actually ours to worry about; it’s all his. We don’t have to worry about using our resources to make ourselves feel secure, comfortable, or like we are somebody. How great is it to hop off that exhausting and never ending hamster wheel? Instead we get to offer all of our resources to make an eternal impact – which is so satisfying – because it’s all his anyway.

It’s all his. Now, that truth may sound simple, but experiencing that truth will be nothing less than revolutionary for each of us personally, and for our church family. It’s revolutionary because for many of us one of the first words we ever learned and have most often repeated is the heretical word “mine.” We’re like the child who licks every cookie in the cookie jar so that we can claim them all as “mine.” We cannot overestimate how deeply ingrained in our hearts the concept of “mine” is. And so, I want to take a moment to allow God to remind us of the wonderful, freeing reality that we can make an eternal impact with the master’s resources because it’s all his.

Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Deuteronomy 10:14 – Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
Psalm 89:11 – The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded.
Psalm 50:12 – “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.”
Job 41:11 – “Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.”
Psalm 50:10 – “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.”
1 Chronicles 29:14 – But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.
1 Chronicles 29:16 – “O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.”

We make an eternal impact with the Master’s resources because it’s all His. In light of this revolutionary truth, I want to invite each of you to do something radical. Please turn in your Reach workbook to page 32-33 (Pause). In his book, Money, Possessions, and Eternity invites his readers to sign a “Transfer of Title” in light of the truth that everything we have is His (show transfer of Title on screen). Here is what it says: “I hereby acknowledge God’s ownership of me and all “my” money and possessions, and everything else I’ve ever imagined belonged to me-including my family and loved ones. Instead of seeing myself as the ultimate recipient, I will see myself as God’s delivery boy or girl, enjoying what he intends me to keep and distributing what he intends to go elsewhere. From this point forward I will think of these assets as his to do with as he wishes. I will do my utmost to ask him and to prayerfully consider how he wishes me to invest his assets to further his kingdom. In doing so I realize I will surrender certain temporary earthly treasures but gain in exchange eternal treasures, as well as increased perspective and decreased anxiety.” I want to invite each of you to do something radically revolutionary. Take two minutes and write your own Transfer of Title in your own words in your Reach Workbook, sign it, and then have the person sitting next to you sign as a witness. It doesn’t have to be long: “I hereby acknowledge that everything I have belongs to the Lord. He has entrusted it to me so that I can have a ball making an eternal impact with it, for his glory. This is the happiest way to live. I will live this way.” (Pause)

WE ARE HIS STEWARDS

I think we are ready to move into the heart of the parable of the talents. In the parable, the Lord Jesus teaches that life in his kingdom, as we wait for him to be back, is stewardship. Our kingdom identity is “stewards.” Jesus says that life in his kingdom awaiting his return is like a man going on a journey. Jesus is the man and soon he will walk the journey to the cross to be crucified for our sins, and then he will rise three days later to the right hand of His Father. Jesus is like a man going on a journey who entrusts his property to us, his servants. I love the word “entrusted.” That’s such a dignified word. Our Master owns everything. The earth is his and the fullness thereof. Everything we have has actually been entrusted to us by the Master so that we can use it in his best interest and make an eternal return on it for his glory. We are His stewards!

As we go on in the parable, we learn that what the Lord has entrusted to us is incredibly valuable. The first servant is entrusted with five talents, the next two, and the next one, according to their ability. The talent that the Lord is referring to is not a natural aptitude or ability. A talent is a money measurement, like the dollar. One talent was equal to the number of dollars that a laborer could hope to earn in twenty years! As one scholar puts it, “This is not about domestic management, but about high-level commercial responsibility.” Friends – even if you feel that you have relatively few resources, especially financial ones, in God’s kingdom economy the little that you have can be of nearly inestimable value when placed freely in his hands to be used for his purposes and glory. Like the servants in the parable, don’t spend your time worrying about whether you have more or less “talents” than other servants. That’s your Master’s call. Whatever he’s entrusted to you is more than enough to steward for eternal impact. You’re a steward! Stewards who make an eternal impact by his grace and for his glory, and love every minute of it.

I want to take a moment to connect the parable of the talents and our identity as stewards of our Master’s resources to Reach. As I said, Reach is a two-year generosity initiative designed to help Citylight acquire a long-term facility where we can proclaim the gospel, serve our neighbors, make disciples, and send out more churches to do the same, long into the future. As part of Reach, each of us are prayerfully considering a two-year generosity commitment. With your Reach workbook you received a commitment card. You can find a copy of it on page 23 in your workbook. Please turn there with me. You’ll notice several blanks on the card. One for your current annual giving. Another for your expanded annual generosity as part of Reach, and then gifts from your stored resources. It’s this card that each of us will fill out at Advance Commitment Night if you’re ready to lead by making your commitments first or on Sunday March 6 (Commitment Sunday). Here is how I want to encourage you to think about this commitment card in light of our parable. A commitment means that something is a priority that shapes how we live. Think of this card as a roadmap guiding your stewardship. Prayerfully consider this card as your guide to stewardship in light of eternity; your guide to making an eternal impact with the Master’s resources over the next two years. In light our parable, I want to especially encourage you to prayerfully seek the Lord regarding your stored resources, like savings, stocks, and property. This has been an especially important point for Andrea and me. What has the Lord entrusted to us not so that we can bury it, but so that we can turn five talents into ten or two talents into four, for God’s glory? This commitment card is our stewardship roadmap. Let’s turn now to the final reason why we make an eternal impact with the master’s resources…

THE STAKES ARE HIGH

Let’s take our final plunge into the parable. The master entrusts his three servants with five, two, and one talent, respectively. Then the master went away, but he’ll be back. The first two servants go with great urgency and double the master’s resources. The final servant buried his master’s money. After a long time, the master returns and the first two stewards bring the wonderful return they’ve made on the master’s money. The master responds with the most glorious words. Matthew 25:23 – His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ Now it’s time for the final servant to present the master with his resources. Listen carefully to the servant’s words. Matthew 25:24-25 – He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ Now that’s very interesting. The servant did not bury his talent because of a lack of competency or courage. He buried his talent because in his heart he didn’t trust the heart of his master. He thought his master to be a hard man. In his heart of hearts, the servant has hard, unbelieving, character assassinating thoughts about the Master, and so he buries his talent. Friends, our greatest barrier to making an eternal impact with the master’s resources is not our lack of resources. Our every barrier is the barrier of faith. When we have hard thoughts about our Master, when we doubt His great goodness and overwhelming love, it’s only then that we fearfully bury our talents. The stakes could not be higher when it comes to the way that we steward the Master’s resources. Our stewardship reveals our heart’s disposition toward our Master. That’s why our primary goal is 100% engagement. Your heart matters more than your money. Our stewardship reveals our heart. The first two servants reveal their trust in the Master through their industrious stewardship. The third servant’s lack of faithful stewardship revealed he was no true servant, and he experienced the Master’s judgment.

Friends, when it comes to making an eternal impact with the master’s resources, the stakes could not be higher. Our stewardship does not gain us entrance into God’s Kingdom. Christian salvation and the Christian life is by faith from beginning to end. However, our stewardship does reveal the disposition of our heart toward our Master. When we bury the resources that he has entrusted to us, it reveals that we believe he’s a hard man, not to be trusted. But friends – our Master is no hard man! No, our Master is gentle and lowly in heart. Our Master loved us so much that he went away for us, away on a cross! Our Master wore a crown of thorns and a criminal’s cross because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. That’s our Master. And our Master is coming again. And the Bible says that when he does, He will dwell with us, we will be his people, and He will be our God. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, not crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Our Master is no hard man. His cross is proof and his return is promise that our Master is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. We can trust him with our eternal salvation and we can trust Him enough to make an eternal impact with his resources over the next two years. We can trust him, make a return on our five or two talents, and hear those wonderful words, “well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the joy of your master.”